


Reine Mère

by Selena



Category: 16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Character Study, Daughters, Female-Centric, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 02:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7416172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/pseuds/Selena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catherine de' Medici and her daughters: what forms a woman, a mother, a queen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Elisabeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Small_Hobbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/gifts).



> **Thanks To** : Likeadeuce, for her kind beta.
> 
>  **Warnings** : no explicit scenes, but given the subject, there are inevitable discussions of: violence, loss of pregnancy, threats of sexual violence. Also, some non-linear storytelling. 
> 
> **Author's Note** : Names in historical fiction are usually a headache. To make matters worse, Catherine's younger sons not only changed their titles but their first names during their lives. Thankfully, they only are briefly referenced in this story, and so I could stick to their original first names (Eduoard-Alexandre and Hercule as opposed to Henri and Francois), since there are already several Henrys and Francis' about. I also used the English versions of the names of characters more familiar in the English-speaking world - i.e. Catherine, Henry II., Francis I. and Francis II. - while the later Henry IV. is Henri de Navarre to make things a bit simpler.

_**Catherine:** _

_I was carrying twins the last time I gave birth. It was my ninth pregnancy, and I nearly died. One of the twins would not leave my womb, and they had to first break her legs, then cut her into pieces in order to get her out of me._

_My other girl lived for a few weeks more. She was my youngest daughter, and I called her Victoire. The King my husband never saw her; he was engaged in a war with the Spanish through their allies at the time. After her birth, I did not see her again, either, for Henry needed me to act as Regent in his absence. It had taken so many years until he trusted me enough for this._

_“Would you not rather recover from your ordeal?” my husband’s mistress asked me. She had been present when I had given birth, as she had been every single time. I hated her more than ever as she told me there were no lack of candidates to take the regency: Montmorency, or the eternally ambitious Guise._

_“I am the Queen,” I replied._

_I was still bleeding when I rose to meet with the small council. They had to throw away my dress afterwards. I did not bleed again. My childbearing days were over._

* * *

 

**Elisabeth:**

“Your mother,” Philip told her, “has too much wit for a woman, and too little honesty for a queen. They say she lies even when she is telling the truth. I shall not meet her. You may proceed to Bayonne on your own, Madame.”

Elisabeth did not know whether she was distressed or glad about this. She had not seen her mother since her fifteenth year, when Elisabeth had married the King of Spain. There had been countless letters between them, true, but no encounter in person to evoke that strange mixture of guilt and pride, of affection and the urge to flee, that her mother had managed to produce in her from childhood onwards whenever they were in the same room together. Philip was too sharp an observer to miss this, and she did not wish him to think of her as anything but exemplary, both as a daughter and as a wife. Her husband was not a man in sympathy with contradictions.

And yet contradictions were what had formed Elisabeth’s relationship with her mother from the start. She was her mother’s oldest daughter, the second child which confirmed that the miraculous long awaited birth of her brother Francis the previous year had not been a fluke. “My child of hope,” she’d once heard Catherine call her. But it hadn’t been Catherine who had raised her, and for a while, Elisabeth had not realized Catherine was her mother at all. As her brother before her and all her brothers and sisters after her, Elisabeth had been given to her father’s mistress to raise, to the beautiful, incomparable Diane de Poitiers. It was Diane who chose the nurses and servants for the royal children, just as it was Diane whose colors the courtiers wore when they knew what was good for them, Diane to whom anyone who wanted anything presented their suit. Diane whose initials were in every single chateau the court resided in, united with those of Elisabeth’s father. H and D, Henry and Diane: the very flowers in every garden proclaimed the devotion Henry of France had for his mistress, the elegant, immaculate woman eighteen years older than him whose beauty remained untouched by time.

When Elisabeth first understood that her mother was not Diane but the short, dumpy woman with goggly eyes and a foreigner’s accent who stank of sweat and milk despite all the perfumes because she was hardly ever not pregnant during the first ten years of Elisabeth’s life, she cried out in protest as this woman kept trying to hug her.

Then the young Queen of Scots arrived at court, Mary Stuart, who was to be Elisabeth’s brother’s bride. She shared an age with Elisabeth, and, so Diane had decreed, was to share a nursery with her as well. Mary was pretty and cheerful, and fun to play with, but two things about her annoyed Elisabeth from the start. For one thing, Mary was taller than she was, and for that matter taller than Francis who was a year older. For another, Mary told her, in a firm voice sounding like a nurse: “Oh, you mustn’t leave the room before me. You must always walk behind me when we enter and leave.”

“I am the King’s daughter,” Elisabeth retorted indignantly, “and you haven’t even married his son yet.”

“But I am already a Queen,” Mary said, not unkindly, and patted Elisabeth’s arm, which made it worse. “And your father may be a King, but your mother is the daughter of Florentine shopkeepers. Everyone says so.”

If she’d been older, Elisabeth would have comforted herself with the fact that the latter was ridiculous; it had been at last a century since the Medici had been engaged in trade. But the gist of it was that Mary was her superior and that this was unfair and somehow Elisabeth’s mother’s fault, because being her daughter made Elisabeth inferior. Elisabeth was upset enough about this to do the unprecedented and seek out her mother’s rooms, after asking a servant to show her where these might be in the palace at Compegnie they were currently residing. Indeed, she was upset enough to tell her mother about her grievance.

“You are indeed Medici as well as Valois,” her mother said quietly. Accent or not, her voice was musical and one of the few things about her people at court agreed were beautiful, together with her long-fingered hands and the legs that could be discerned when she rode. “You are a descendant of Lorenzo Il Magnifico, who ruled Florence through his genius and who brought it a golden age while those Scottish barbarians didn’t even know how to bathe. You are the grandniece of two Popes. And you shall be Queen to the most powerful monarch of Europe. I will see it done.”

She was still dumpy and small. But the absolute certainty in her statement and the fierceness of her look had Elisabeth caught up in what her mother said, and for the first time, she didn’t notice anyone else.

Then she remembered how Diane had laughed when Elisabeth had asked to keep her own nursery and let Mary have a new one. And suddenly she felt not just grateful that her mother was taking her part, but ashamed, for she knew she had never taken her mother’s.

“Why would you do this for me?” she whispered.

“Because you are _my_ daughter,” her mother said. “And all of my children will wear crowns. That’s what fate owes me. And trust me, Elisabeth, I am good at collecting my debts.”

At twenty years of age, and after more than five years as a Queen of Spain, Elisabeth understood that this promise given to her in her childhood had not been the only, or even the main reason for her marriage. The rivalry between France and Spain that had started when Spain had become a part of the Holy Roman Empire - and thus suddenly surrounded France - had been carried out for two generations now. Every now and then, it turned bloody, and usually to France’s disadvantage. Elisabeth’s father had spent part of his childhood in Spain as a hostage because of this. It had made sense to try and end this enmity through a marriage.

But Elisabeth also knew that Mary was back in Scotland and Diane had ended in obscurity somewhere in the provinces, while Catherine currently ruled France for the second son she’d seen crowned.

Relationships between France and Spain were tense all over again right now, which was, no doubt, one of the reasons why her mother had been pushing for a personal meeting with Elisabeth and Philip. There were many of her mother’s actions to which her husband took offense. He disliked that she kept receiving and sending emissaries to the Sultan in Turkey. The alliance between the French and the Sultan which Elisabeth’s grandfather had started was a long term scandal in Christendom, for was not France supposed to be the First Daughter of the Church? Philip, great grandson of the most Catholic monarchs who had driven the Moors out of Spain, felt this keenly. Then there was the report that her mother had organized a French expedition to the Spanish territory in the New World they called Florida, which Philip saw as unwelcome meddling at best, and downright thievery if the French should succeed in grabbing land for themselves.

But worst of all was the way Elisabeth’s mother acted, and did not act, with the heretics of France. That she negotiated with them instead of having them burned, that she kept playing them and the powerful Guise family against each other: all of this, Philip insisted, was a scandal. Heresy was the worst evil of their time, said Philip, and Elisabeth did not disagree, though she noticed he was not above compromising with heretics himself when it suited him. Before he had married her, he had tried to marry her namesake, the Queen of England, his former sister-in-law, and after she had turned him down, he still kept the Pope from officially excommunicating her and declaring her deposed. If he hadn’t done that, he would have had to support Mary Stuart’s claim to the English throne at a time when she’d still been Queen of France. What was this, if not compromise and policy? Was this really so different from what her mother was doing now?

Elisabeth would have never given voice to these doubts. Her husband was a good husband and king. He did not shame his queen by publicly flaunting a mistress and making the court treat her as the true queen, the way her father had done. In fact, Philip had given up the mistress he had had before their wedding, and he had not taken another since. He honored and respected her, and she owed him her complete loyalty. Whatever sense of guilt and daughterly obligation she felt towards her mother, she had to prevent it from letting her lose sight of the fact she was supposed to represent Spain in this meeting, not France.

The summer this year was one of the hottest in ages, on both sides of the border. By the time Elisabeth arrived at the French side of the river Bidassoa, she later heard, six of the French soldiers had dropped dead from the heat in their armors, waiting for her. Her own clothes, dark and in the Spanish style, without the bright colors and slashes of France, felt heavy on her skin.

Her mother was in black, too, she could see it from a distance. Always in black, except during the weddings of her children, ever since Elisabeth’s father had died. Elisabeth had been given a beautiful grey palfrey by her brother Charles, the current young King of France for whom her mother reigned, and as she rode the animal, she couldn’t help but imagine her mother’s eyes on her; her mother, who had introduced the sidesaddle to France, who’d been the first horsewoman at court in more than one sense, for few others rode. For all that she was named after the goddess of the hunt, Diane de Poitiers had not liked to ride at all. In Spain, there had not been many, either, though more each year that Elisabeth had spent there, imitating her. But no woman rode with her mother’s skill.

Elisabeth found herself wondering whether she had become sloppy on horseback through lack of competition, and whether her mother would notice. She chided herself. That was the least of all worries.

When she finally stood face to face with her mother, stood on French ground and opened her arms to embrace her, Elisabeth found herself shaking. So familiar, and not; her mother, who had always loved to eat, had gained a bit more weight, but had hardly aged otherwise. Her hair was entirely covered, but the eyebrows were still dark. Due to the hot day, there was the sweat again under the perfume.

“Your majesty,” her mother said, instead of embracing her, and sank into a faultless curtsey.

“I should be kneeling to _you_ , Madame ma mère,” Elisabeth protested, and attempted to do so. Only then did her mother rise to catch her in her arms.

“Not so, your grace. You are, after all, the first Queen of Christendom,” her mother said, her voice with that faint Italian accent low and serious, her dark eyes intent on Elisabeth - and Elisabeth knew her mother had not forgotten a thing, not even a short conversation with a child years ago. Or anything that preceded it.

“For which I am in your debt, dearest mother,” Elisabeth replied, feeling her throat constricted.

“I know,” her mother said, and smiled at her.

Her mother had brought all of Elisabeth’s siblings with her, not just Charles, even the two youngest ones, Hercule and Margot, whom Elisabeth hardly remembered. It was both touching and troubling to meet them; and painful, for Francis, the dead brother Elisabeth had been closest to in age and affection, was not there. The last time they had all been together had been at the funeral of the King, Elisabeth’s father. They had been in tears then, too.

There were no tears when, in between receptions, speeches, masques and elaborate dinners, her mother drew Elisabeth aside and addressed what no speech had been able to disguise: Philip’s absence at what was supposed to be a meeting of rulers.

“So your husband suspects me,” her mother said, without further attempts at circumlocution. “Do you know that his suspicions will lead us straight to war?”

For a moment, Elisabeth froze. Then she told herself she was no longer a girl, and besides, even as a child she had been taught how to deflect and spar in conversation.

“What makes you suppose, Madame, that the King suspects your Majesty?”

Her mother’s eyebrows rose. “How Spanish you have become, my daughter.”

“As you became French, my mother, when you married my father,” Elisabeth parried, and saw the corners of Catherine’s mouth curve.

“Indeed. But hear me, your grace: there cannot be another war between France and Spain. We must prevent it.”

“Nothing would make my husband happier. Indeed, he would gladly lend soldiers and money to the King my brother’s Majesty so you can deal with the foes within France instead. For this,” Elisabeth continued, taking a breath, as she came to the hardest part, “troubles the King my husband most: that a Catholic monarch should in his realm foster accursed heresy.”

Philip had been insistent that none of those princes of the blood who were Protestants were to be present in Bayonne; he would not, he said, allow her to meet a heretic and become infected by their ideas. She had not said that she had met several of them during her childhood, nor brought up her namesake, the heretic Queen of England, whom he had met quite often during his time on that so thoroughly infected island.

“Spanish soldiers to deal with our Protestants would turn even a great many Catholics against your brother the King,” Elisabeth’s mother said matter-of-factly. “It might interest you that Prince Condé, whom your husband has banished from this meeting, thinks the way to unite Protestants and Catholics in France is to go to war with Spain. Unfortunately, he is not alone in that idea, and if what you just suggested is ever repeated to anyone but me, there will be even more supporting it.”

Condé and the Bourbons were those princes of the blood who were Protestant, but Elisabeth did not recall them being bold enough to voice opinions such as this in public. When she had left France, it had been the Guises who were blatantly trying to dictate royal policy, supported by their reputation as the most faithful Catholics of the realm, their money, and the fact that Mary Stuart was their niece.

“Why did you allow the heretics to become so powerful, Mother?” she asked, steeling herself for a reprimand. “Was it just to deal with the Guises?”

Her mother’s eyes flashed. “There is nothing just about any of this, Elisabeth," she returned, and with a pang, Elisabeth recalled that her mother used to employ this tactic around Diane and her circle: choosing a phrase that always left courtiers uncertain whether Catherine's French failed her, or whether she was making a deliberate pun. "The world is as it is. I cannot not simply wish the Guises away, or Condé and his Protestants. I have spent these last years negotiating with both, and I tell you, either, if they become too powerful, could bring an end to your brother’s rule and our family’s. And _that_ I will never allow.”

“But what about the souls of the King’s subjects in France, your Majesty?” Elisabeth protested. “I understand your reasons, your Grace, I do, but how can you justify allowing more and more to damm themselves for all eternity through heresy?”  


Her mother neatly folded her hands, and in direct contrast to this pious gesture said: “I am not concerned with anyone’s soul.”

There was a truth in this Elisabeth had not seen until that moment. Niece to two Popes or not, her mother had never shown more religious devotion than the bare necessity her rank demanded. She had excelled at patronage for artists, painters, architects and musicians, and been famous for bringing exquisite Italian cooks and their cuisine to France, not clergy. But it was still a far cry from this apparent utter indifference towards the cause of the true religion and half of the realm damming itself.

  
It was a deeply frightening realization, for that way, surely, lay damnation, and not simply for the heretics but for her mother.

“I’m concerned with their obedience, the obedience they owe my children,” her mother continued. “If I lose that, _then_ the devil is truly loosened in France. So you’d better tell his majesty your husband to trust me in this. France will not start a war with Spain, for it would ruin us. But if we are already ruined because, say, there is continual meddling through certain nobles, then we are already ruined, and then who knows what might happen?”

It was impossible to say whether this had been meant as a plea, a warning or a threat, or all three. This, presumably, was what three Spanish ambassadors in a row had meant when telling Philip they found it impossible to get a straight answer from the Queen Mother of France.

“I will pray for you, your grace,” Elisabeth murmured, for while she wasn’t sure how her husband would respond to this, she was very much afraid how God would.

“That is good to know,” her mother replied, let a heartbeat pass, and then added: “As you were ever my child of hope.”


	2. Claude

_**Catherine:** _

_For the first ten years of my marriage, I had no children at all. This was of minor importance to anyone but me for as long as Henry was still Duke of Orleans and his older brother the Dauphin. But then his brother died, my husband became first in line to the throne, and the fact that I was, as everyone thought, barren, meant our marriage had no more reason to exist._

_I was fourteen when I was married to Henry, whose father had been promised a huge dowry by my uncle the Pope. Only a third of which had been paid by the time my uncle had died, and the next Pope, who was not a Medici, refused to pay anything at all. So there it was, and there I was: of no strategic advantage, for I had no more riches to give, and no more alliances to guarantee; failing in the most basic duty of any wife, that of providing children; and most certainly not beloved by my husband, who not only made it clear to all and sundry that his heart belonged to Diane, but also took the occasional additional mistress in his bed, one of whom provided him with his first child, thus proving_ he _could sire issue. If he wanted to petition the new Pope for an annulment of our marriage, who was to stop him?_

_Only one man. Which is why, from the beginning, I had done everything I could to win over my father-in-law, King Francis I. He was a man famous for loving women in every sense of the word, and none too scrupulous about the ties of marriage, but while in my youth I could pass for at least pleasant to look at, I was never beautiful. Moreover, Francis’ chief mistress, Madame d’Etampes, was one of the most hot-tempered and vengeful women at court and would not have hesitated to destroy me if she had assumed even for a second I could be a rival. No, I had to win the King by other means. Fortunately, he was a man who loved the arts, and artists, Florentines and Venetians most of all, which is why he offered a home to Master Leonardo and others, many of whom I recommended to him. There is a reason why I never tried to rid myself of my accent. A great many of the French distrust anyone who comes from Italy, but not King Francis; my father-in-law loved most things Italian, and I set out to become a living embodiment of Florence to him._

_He also loved to hunt. When I first came to France, a few ladies of the court rode as well, but they used to sit sideways on a horse with their feet on a small footrest; it was a very chair-like affair. You certainly could not join the hunt riding this way. The design I used, and which now everyone uses, has the rider facing forward, hooking her right leg around the pommel of the saddle with a horn added to the near side of the saddle to secure the rider’s right knee. When I rode like this, I could easily best most courtiers, and my father-in-law, who loved boldness - to a degree, always to a degree, for it never had to be less than flattering to him – was duly delighted and impressed._

_He still might have had my marriage annulled once Henry had become the Dauphin. Regretfully, for I believe he truly liked me, but he would have done it, for a barren wife is of use to no one, no matter how agreeable she has made herself to her father-in-law. So I humiliated myself to an unprecedented degree. I threw myself on the floor in front of him and begged to be allowed to stay and serve Henry and his next wife if my marriage was to end, for that, I said, was how much I loved both France and and my husband. My father-in-law bade me rise and promised I would stay Dauphine._

_“My dear,” he said to me the next time we rode together, “I hope you understand why you are my daughter-in-law still. It is not because you play the faithful Griselda well, though you do, and I wish my idiot of a son wouldn’t have made it necessary. And it is not because I enjoy your company, and would miss you were you gone, though I would. No, it is because I have never seen a woman fight as strongly as you do for her chance to get on the French throne, as patiently as you do, and as tirelessly as you do. We live in troubled times, and France needs a guardian of your determination. Now, tell me more about this young poet who wants to translate the Decamerone…”_

_Still, the protection he gave me was only ever going to be temporary, and end with his last breath. And so I continued to do everything to have a child. Doctor or quack, I did what they told me. I even drank mule’s piss and put dung on my private parts, which is supposed to help with fertility and only helped to make Henry more disgusted with me on the rare occasions when he visited my bed. There was only one thing left in the end. I went to Diane de Poitiers and begged her for help. She laughed at me._

_“But why should I?”_

_“Because,” I said, “he might actually fall in love with another queen. A truly high born queen, who could then ask him to send you away. You already know he will never love me. You don’t know he’ll never love another. He is not faithful to you, either, he has other mistresses already. Do you truly want to invite your own destruction?”_

_“Little shopkeeper’s daughter,” she said slowly, “you aren’t a fool at all, are you?”_

_She arranged for me to watch them, “so you can learn and benefit”, she said. It made all the earlier humiliations seem like nothing. He was so different with her, tender and passionate. He worshipped every inch of her body. Trying to do what she did would be pointless, I knew that already, because he would only see me, not her. But I still couldn’t bring myself to look away._

_And then she said: “Why don’t you join us?”_

_I could never tell anyone this. It is a secret that will die with me. What I did tell my ladies when I finally got pregnant was that good Doctor Jean Fernel had managed to help me, for which I got him appointed as court physician._

_“I will, of course, supervise their education,” Diane said when my son Francis was born, my oldest son, who was to die in my arms a little less than seventeen years later. “After all, they are mine as well as yours, aren’t they, your grace?”_

_How I hated her._

_“Madame,” Henry said to me after Francis had been baptized with great ceremony, and for the first time, there was gratitude and respect in his voice, “you have given me the most precious of gifts. I shall not forget…” He stopped, hesitated and then continued, “what it cost you.”_

_I was still young and naïve enough to believe this meant we would become truly husband and wife now. Even the fact that all decisions regarding Francis were to be made by Diane did not stop me from hoping; surely, the next child would be mine, or rather, ours. Henry’s and mine. He was starting to confide in me a little then; he told me how it had hurt him that his father had given him up as a hostage to Spain, had left him there for years while breaking all his promises to the Spanish and risking them punishing his son for this, which they did._

_“This will not happen to our children,” he said, “I swear.”_

_I had been a hostage myself as a child. But I could not bring myself to tell him what had happened to me then. Instead, I said: “I, too, swear. I shall never desert our children. Never let evil come to them.”_

_He pressed my hand. I was – I was almost happy. This is why I called Elisabeth my child of hope. She was born just a year after Francis; my body had quickly recovered, and of course there was no question of me nursing him. My breasts stopped producing milk as soon as I got pregnant again._

_“I can think of no worthier lady to raise the princess my daughter than the lady of my heart, the lady of all our hearts,” Henry told the court. Diane smiled at me, and I understood at last that nothing had changed, and nothing would, save that I was a walking womb for both of them._

_And yet. And yet. If there was ever to be change, it could only happen through those children. They had ensured that I would be Queen, would stay Queen._

_They were my future. I just had to make sure I was also theirs._

* * *

 

 **Claude** :

When people started to write scandalous pamphlets about her family, Claude was never mentioned. Her brothers were described as madmen, weak or bloodthirsty in varying degrees, her younger sister Margot as a whore, and even Elisabeth, far away in Spain, was either accused of having an affair with her stepson, Don Carlos, or of having schemed against him to cause his father to imprison him, never mind that the rumors about Carlos’ madness had already been spreading throughout Europe for years. And of course the majority of any pamphlet’s texts was reserved for her mother: Madame Serpente, the maggot from Italy, there was no end to the animal comparisons.

Claude knew this because her mother, during one of her visits to Nancy, had read out parts of the latest pamphlet to her, much amused. “The only pity,” she said, “is that the author had not previously applied to me for information, as by his own statement” – she briefly looked at the page opened in her lap and quoted, deliberately allowing her accent to thicken – “’it was impossible to fathom the depths of her Florentine deceit’ – and he evidently knows nothing of the events he pretends to discuss. Besides, he left so much out!”

“What did he write about me?” Claude asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as her mother.

“Nothing,” her mother replied with a careless waving of her hand.

Considering Claude certainly hadn’t yearned to be dragged through the mud, and that public hatred was nothing to joke about, she should have been relieved. And yet it stung, a little. But then, Claude was used to being invisible.

Claude was the second oldest daughter, and being raised with Elisabeth and Mary Stuart would, in other circumstances, have invited inevitable comparisons and fostered competition. But not for Claude. The clubfoot and hunchback she was born with ensured that while Elisabeth and Mary were compared to each other, nobody ever thought of expecting Claude to match either of them in beauty and gracious demeanor. “Well,” Diane de Poitiers said, “one child of every noble family should be given to God in any case. You will make an excellent nun, my dear.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Claude’s mother commented, sounding deceptively mild, as she always did when addressing Diane in public. “And having been raised by nuns, I would know. Claude is far too spirited and in love with the world to devote herself to God.”

“Spirited? Truly, Madame, you see what no one else can,” Diane said, while her ladies in waiting tittered, and left the nursery.

Claude ran to her mother, her bad foot not an obstacle for those few steps, and threw her arms around her. In truth, she did not want to be a nun. Even if she could not dance herself, she loved the listening to the music, and she loved the beautiful dresses that were tailored to make her back look as normal as possible. Most of all, she loved to ride, which her mother taught her; on a horse, it did not matter that she had a clubfoot, and that her back was not straight.

They were seven siblings, all in all, the seven of the ten children her mother had given birth to who survived their earliest childhood. The boys were the most important ones, the future of the Valois dynasty; the girls were to seal or create alliances for France. That was what first nurses and then tutors had taught them, and the boys preened accordingly, none more so than Eduaord-Alexandre, despite being only the third in line, after Francis and Charles, and thus not likely to become King of France. He was the brother closest to Claude in order of birth, but he never made a secret out of preferring Margot, who was born after him. Then again, Margot was everyone’s favourite sister, so that was understandable. Claude had no particular ally among her siblings, not among those older and not among those younger than her, who’d all chosen each other.

But she had her mother. Her mother who knew what it was to be invisible, her mother who thought that Claude was worth spending time with, that Claude had a future which wasn’t in a nunnery.

“There will be a marriage for you,” she said, and Claude surprised herself by answering: “But not a man so vile and desperate that he will take any bride for her dowry, your grace. I would rather stay at court a maid than marry where I am despised and maltreated.”

A moment too late, she felt like biting her tongue, afraid that her mother would take this as an allusion to her own marriage. It had not been intended as one. Claude had been better taught than that; to criticize the King her father out loud was impossible. And he was a good father: when she was brought into his presence, he always spoke kindly to her, and smiled, not once giving her the impression he was disappointed in her appearance. But she knew that the way he had elevated Diane above her mother and continued to do so every day in every year of their lives was worse for Catherine than beatings would have been.

Claude was better at hiding her thoughts than her siblings were; she had to be, or would have left herself vulnerable to more than just the occasional hunchback joke. But her mother could read her without effort, and the silence between them thickened. No, she had not meant it this way, but a thought could not be unthought, and her mother hated to be pitied. Desperately, Claude tried to find a way to express what she felt that wasn’t insulting.

“I would rather be at your side than anywhere else, my lady mother,” she said, and her mother’s hardened countenance softened again.

“Then I will have to find you a marriage where that is possible,” she said.

Claude’s future husband turned out to be only four years older than herself, not the vile old man of her fears, and the Duke of Lorraine, which meant that unlike Elisabeth, she would not have to leave France. The Dukes of Lorraine traced their descent back to Charlemagne and had a claim to the Crown of Jerusalem, the most holy of crowns, and a claim to the crown of Naples, which was more likely to actually come into their possession once more. Claude would be lying if she were to say that she was indifferent to the possibility of becoming Queen one day. It would be sweet to have the courtiers that once gave her amused or pitying looks announce her as Madame La Reine when she visited her mother. But that she could do so, visit her mother often, and have her mother visit her, was more important, as was the fact that her husband did not prove to be ungallant.

His mother had been a Princess of Denmark, who had ruled the duchy for him after his father’s death until he grew of age. It meant that he supported her mother’s claim to the Regency over those of the Princes of the Blood like the Bourbons and the Guises after her brother Francis had died, and her brother Charles was far too young to rule on his own. A part of Claude wondered whether that had been another reason for her marriage; her mother had always been good at accomplishing several goals with one means.

It was a good life, in Lorraine. Her husband treated her with respect, and if her appearance ever disappointed him, he was too well educated or too kind to show it. When she had her first child – her mother’s first grandchild, and her mother was present when it was born -, the decisions about the boy’s upbringing were hers to make. Visiting the court, both with her husband and without him, was good, too, but never without a troubling undercurrent.

There were rumors. More and more rumors, and while her mother laughed about them, Claude couldn’t quite bring herself to do the same. Some sounded ridiculous, true; if her mother was so fond of poisoning people who were her enemies, the survival of Diane de Poitiers for so many years and retirement to the country after Claude’s father had died was nothing short of miraculous. Other rumors had a distressing ring of plausibility.

Once, her mother asked her to talk with Margot, to caution her, as Margot, who was growing up into an exceedingly beautiful girl, was flirting with many a courtier, and none more than the young Guise. “She may listen to a sister’s words more than to a mother’s,” Catherine said, and Claude tried to be a good, responsible sibling and confidant.

“Sister, it is not enough to be virtuous; you must also appear so, or the honor of France…”

Margot laughed. She was the only one of the siblings to have inherited their father’s carefree, full throated laughter.

“This court already has the reputation of being Europe’s most luxurious whorehouse, and it has our mother to thank for that.”

“What are you saying?” Claude exclaimed horrified. “Our mother is a grieving widow, still, and would not as much as smile at another man with…”

Margot scoffed and interrupted her. “That’s not what I mean. Of course she is chaste. Who’d want _her_? But haven’t you noticed, sister, that her ladies-in-waiting these days are all far more young and pretty than they used to be? Why do you think that is?”

Claude didn’t reply, too busy fighting a surge of dislike for Margot because of that careless “who’d want her?”, which Margot might as well have said about herself. She reminded herself that Margot was young, still very young, and did not think before she spoke.

“They call them the Queen Mother’s Flying Squadron,” Margot continued with the glee of a child confiding an adult secret. “She uses them as spies. She makes them share the beds of all the important nobles. Do you see now why I cannot help but laugh when any of you lecture me on chastity, my sister?”

“If your milkmaid spills milk all over her dress, does this give you license to walk around in stained clothing yourself?” Claude said witheringly, but inwardly she was upset, and continued to be so, for it was true. In her childhood, her mother’s companions had been either older or as old as her mother, not like the young faces in voluptuous dresses that fluttered in and out of the Queen’s rooms these days. After Claude had nerved herself to ask about them, her mother stunned her by admitting to Margot’s accusation.

“My father-in-law, God save his soul, used to say that only three things kept our nobility tame. A strong king, a shared religion, and constant physical exercise. Your brother Charles is a good boy, but he is a child still. We no longer all share a religion in this country, and there was already war between Catholics and Protestants. I have negotiated with both, my daughter, and let me tell you, their ambitions and stubbornness match. But we cannot let the country be torn apart by another war between its citizens, and I won’t have another war with Spain, either. So I well let them exhaust themselves here instead, those young bucks so eager to fight, and have them tell their plans where they are reported to me.”

But what about their honor, their reputation, Claude thought. These girls came to court because their families considered it a privilege; they entrusted the Queen with their safety. It was a bad thing to do.

And yet. And yet. Her mother’s reasons sounded true. And Claude couldn’t help it, the fact that her mother had not lied, had not denied the truth but trusted her with it, all this warmed her heart. Her mother hardly trusted anyone else. Claude felt treasured and valued by the person whose love she had always depended on, and she decided that even if her mother employed some dark ways to rule, she did so for a good reason: to keep the country safe, to keep Claude’s brother the king safe.

Her mother loved her children and was guarding their realm. Surely that justified a lot?

But peace in France turned out to be brittle and temporary, always temporary. For every successful negotiation her mother concluded, there was yet another outbreak of war. The people lost faith in the King as the defender of the true faith, and looked to the Duke of Guise for this, while the death of Condé only resulted in the Protestants now being led by Coligny, who was, according to her mother, more hard-headed and ambitious than Condé had been, and pushing for France to support the uprising against the Spanish in the Netherlands. “I envy the Queen of England,” her mother said, referring to the heretic Elizabeth Tudor. “At least the people in her country share her belief.”

“Surely, most of the people of France are still good Catholics,” Claude protested.

“That is not what I meant”, her mother replied, but refused to elaborate. In the end, her new solution shocked Claude to the core. She opened negotiations with the Protestants for the young King of Navarre, Henri de Bourbon, to marry Margot in order to reconcile both parties once and for all.

Margot flat out refused at first, and this time, Claude’s sympathies were with her, though she was tactful enough only to voice this when she was alone with her mother.

“Your grace, if she marries him, she might as well damn her immortal soul. Heresy is like a cancer – what if he infects her? What of their children? As her husband, he will have the right to decide, and he will want them to be Protestants. Margot would live with the surety that her own children will go to hell. Surely there is another way to end the wars than to condemn my sister to such a cruel fate?”

“There is still hope the Queen of England will consider your brother Hercule as a husband,” her mother said matter-of-factly, “but I doubt that will be enough to mollify our Protestants here, and will do nothing to soothe the Catholics.”

This was utterly beside the point Claude had been trying to make, and she refused to believe her mother had not understood her. Yes, this must be what her mother’s enemies meant when cursing her slippery evasions during negotiations.

“A daughter of France must be ready to give her life for her country,” Claude said quietly. “But surely not her immortal soul.”

“I’ll ensure that the marriage contract contains a clause promising Margot won’t have to convert,” her mother said at last. “But believe me, it is not concern for her soul that makes your sister so stubborn.”

“She would say that,” Margot stormed when Claude told her a heavily edited version of this conversation. “She cares nothing about me! I’ll tell you how this ends, with me alone and without any friends and allies. The Catholics will consider me a traitor and heretic, and the Protestants will distrust me because I am a Catholic. And worst of all, I’ll be stuck in Navarre with Henri and his garlic breath and lack of bathing habits!”

They all knew the young King of Navarre. His father had been the First Prince of the Blood in their father’s reign, and had tried to claim the regency for himself, only to be effortlessly outwitted by their mother and indeed manipulated into supporting her own claim. Antoine de Bourbon had been famously foolish, but if their mother had never born their father any children, and the Valois dynasty had ended, he would have been next in line for the throne. And now his son was, after their brothers. That was why the boy had spent some time at court in between being raised at Navarre by his fiercely Protestant mother. Yes, they all knew him, and he had not been disagreeable company, fondness for garlic notwithstanding; if only he wasn’t a Protestant, Claude would have said Margot could do worse.

She came to Paris for Margot’s wedding with Henri de Navarre, as did half the country, it seemed. It was one of the hottest summers in years, and Claude felt already sick before arriving, so sick that she had to stop the journey at Chalons. Her mother came to her to nurse her back to health in time for the wedding, and so Claude was with her when Catherine received news of Admiral Coligny had used her absence to persuade Claude's brother, King Charles, to write a very indiscreet letter pledging French support for the Protestant uprising in the Netherlands against the Spanish. A letter which, since the battle in question had been lost, was now in the possession of their enemies. Her mother's rage was incandescent. Not since her father's death had Claude seen her in such a state.

"We cannot go to war with Spain, and he's just given Philip a reason to invade!"

"But surely..."

"But nothing. If you think love for your sister will hold Philip back, you are dreaming, my child. Our forces are still deeply divided. Even the Catholics are, since half of them are prone to ignore your brother and wait for what the Guises tell them. The Spanish aren't just united, they have all their resources from the New World to draw on. We can't afford a war with Spain, and if Coligny is so hellbent on driving France into one by using your brother's need for a father, something drastic will have to be done," her mother finished, adding curtly: "Get better, Claude. Get better now. I won't be able to nurse you in the months to come, and I may well need your support."

"I will try, your grace."

"Don't try. Do," her mother said, all her fierce intensity focused on Claude. "There is no try. I need you. Will you let me down?"

There was only one answer to this. Her mother was the only one who had ever truly needed Claude, wanted Claude. Claude got better and went with her mother to Paris. She was not present at the emergency council session where her mother and Coligny openly clashed, but she heard about the result. Everyone did. Her mother got all the Council Members to vote for peace and for the King to deny the letter and congratulate Philip on his success in the Netherlands. All the Council Members, except for Coligny, who then rose and said: "Madame, if the King decides against a war, may God spare him another from which he will not be able to extricate himself. I am not able to oppose that what Your Majesty has done but I am assured she will have reason to regret it."

That wasn't just an open threat of rebellion if Charles didn't wage war against Spain as Coligny wanted. It was a direct threat to her mother's life. Claude expected her mother to be even more angry than she had been when receiving word at Chalons. But her mother had gone quiet. More quiet and still than she had ever been since the days of Diane de Poitiers.

"Your Grace, surely the King my brother must now banish this vile man?" Claude asked, horrified, and yet not sure, for Charles indeed had expressed an inexplicable fondness for Coligny.

"We're past banishments," her mother said, still soft spoken. "And there's a wedding to go through."


	3. Margot

**_Catherine:_ **

_I never knew my mother. She died fifteen days after having given birth to me. I did not know my father, either; he died only a week after my mother, of what, they never told me, but there were rumors. There still are; my spies tell me that people think disease is my heritage, and that I gave it to my children. To be frank, I sometimes wonder myself, because they never were very healthy, except for Margot. But I am healthy, I always was, and surely, if there had been a disease, I would have perished long before giving birth? No, it must be the fault of the servants Diane picked to raise them, of the food they chose. It cannot be otherwise._

_At first, I was raised by my aunt, Clarice Strozzi, whom they called the true man in the family in Florence. God knows the Medici needed one. My uncle Giulio, who later became his Holiness Pope Clement, definitely did not qualify, God rest his soul. He succeeded in killing off the last of the loyalty Florence had for the Medici, and they rose up against us. Clement, of course, was far away in Rome and in safety when this happened. I was in Florence, and could not believe there was any danger. Didn't the people call me their_ Duchessina _? Didn't they love me?_

_I was eight years old when I found out how quickly love can turn to hate, and that family means nothing when your own life is at stake. My aunt Clarice left the city for Rome, never to return. She did not take me with her, though she took the trouble of saying goodbye._

_"The nuns will take care of you, Caterina," she said. "A child in sanctuary - who could be safer? But I am the granddaughter of Il Magnifico, the Pope's cousin and an adult woman. They would not treat me well, I fear."_

_"Take me with you!" I cried._

_"You would slow me down, my dear," she said, while we heard the people yelling "death to the Medici" outside._

_The nuns did take care of me. They taught me Latin, Greek and French, and even some mathematics, which I found fascinating. They were benevolent goalers, but goalers just the same, for I was the city's hostage against the Pope, and not allowed to leave the walls of the convent. At first, remembering the crowd chanting death wishes, I didn't want to, but a child forgets her fears, and soon I chafed under the restrictions. I also wondered what the City expected the Pope to do, for I had no reason to believe he had any particular fondness for me. He had his own illegitimate son, Alessandro, whom he adored; all other children, my cousins and myself, were merely of concern if they could be used for alliances, I understood that well enough, and I was hardly the only girl, so he could let me live and die in that convent without any great loss to his power._

_Still, both the people of Florence and myself were surprised by just how little he cared. He made an alliance with the Emperor, whose bastard daughter was to marry Alessandro, the Pope's bastard son; and soon the Emperor was in front of the city gates, besieging Florence. Hunger came; pestilence came. I saw death in so many ways during the siege, for of course the sick were soon nursed in the convents of the city. And then they thought of using their hostage. Of course the Emperor laughed in their faces. If anything, I was an impediment to seeing his daughter rule at Alessandro's side over Florence when it was all over._

_I remember standing in front of the council as they talked of how to respond to this. I was eleven years old by then. They had ordered me to them, and I had smarts enough to know it could not be for a good reason. My last attempt to save myself was to cut off my hair, wear a nun's habit and cry: "Holy mother, I am yours! Let us now see which excommunicated wretch will drag a Bride of Christ from her nunnery!"_

_It wasn't much use. As we rushed through the streets of Florence, on some of the few mules that had survived the siege, I could hear the starving people scream abuse at me. I was the niece of their enemy who'd brought this on them. They hated me, to a man, to a woman._

_"Let's put her in a basket and lower her down the city walls so she dies in the cannon fire against our city!" one of the Councillors said when I was finally standing before them. He'd been fat and wealthy once, but the siege had taken money and weight of him in great measures. When he stared at me balefully, I understood this was not just idle talk. He was prepared to do it._

_"But to drag a child out of sanctuary..."_

_"The Pope is our enemy. What need have we to respect the laws of the Church then? And this isn't a child. This is a Medici brat."_

_"A Medici whore," another councillor said. "Eleven? They marry them away earlier than that. To bloody foreigners, because Florentines aren't good enough for them anymore. Well, not this one. They couldn't use her for marriage if we make her work for her keep with the soldiers, could they?"_

_I am, and always shall be, the architect of my history, the sole author whose word counts, and I tell you I was saved from this fate. When the siege ended, I was a frightened but untouched girl, a virgin still with the nuns, whom I made sure to keep wealthy and in good fortune once I had the power to do so. I never forget. I never forget anything._

_They keep calling me "the Florentine" here in France, and my father-in-law, who, you'll remember, loved so many things Italian and collected Italian artists with a passion, once asked me whether I was homesick, longing for Florence, that cradle of culture and the arts. It was one of my most self possessed moments, for I did not laugh._

_He was a clever man, my father-in-law, and yet it did not occur to him that there was a reason more powerful than fondness for France or feelings for Henry my husband that made me endure any humiliation, do anything, to prevent being sent back.  
The French do not love me; I never expected them to. But I am their Queen. And I shall die as their Queen. I will never be powerless again. And anyone who threatens me, and threatens what is mine, will not live long to regret it. _

* * *

 

**Margot:**

Margot couldn't remember a time in her life when she hadn't lived in fear and awe of her mother. Sometimes her siblings mentioned Diane de Poitiers, but Margot, who could barely recall her father, could not remember Diane. She simply had been too young when her father died. It was impossible for her to think of life at Court without her mother as the black center of it all, literally black, like the widow's weed she always wore, her word law to the rest of the family, and soon to the country.

It was impossible not to react against this. Looking at her sisters, Margot could see what she didn't want to become. To think of Elisabeth, Queen of the most powerful realm in the world, and yet when she came to Bayonne, she did not do so with demands but with submission, first parotting her husband's views and then their mothers. And Claude, so eager to turn herself into their mother's grey shadow, not daring once to think for herself.

It was the hypocrisy of it all that was most galling to Margot. To be told she had to remain chaste while her brothers fucked around, and her mother had her spies trained to jump into bed with anyone she deemed useful. To be told to show piety, when she damn well knew her mother at heart was the one thing worse than an heretic, a woman who did not believe in anything, and solely wanted her children to impress the people with their devotion to God because the Guises had managed to make themselves the head of the Catholic party. To be told to show obedience when her mother never obeyed anyone, certainly not her brothers once they became Kings.

It became Margot's pleasure to break all of these rules. And yet she would have given anything for her mother to acknowledge her in approval and love. She wasn't sure why she wanted this so badly, except that it was her mother, in the end, who counted. Not her brothers, not the princes of the Church, not her lovers. She wanted her mother, her all-powerful, all knowing, all-consuming mother to look at her, to see her fully, and to say to her "well done, Margot".

But this would never happen. Falling in love with the young Duke of Guise hadn't just been rebellion, it had also been consideration: for would such a marriage not turn the Guises from rivals to allies again? But her mother treated the mere idea as idiocy while pursuing the obscenity of a Protestant marriage for her. This practically asked for what happened, and Margot wasn't sorry, even as her mother actually beat her, and allowed Charles to beat her, flesh against flesh, for endangering the negotiations by her flagrant affair.

The marriage went ahead anyway. Gallingly, Henri de Navarre refused to be hateable; he'd been a cheerful boy, not mean-spirited in the way some of her brothers could be, even if he did stink of garlic, and he'd turned into a witty man belying the Protestants' reputation for dourness. Perhaps, in better circumstances, they could have come to terms with each other.

But the circumstances couldn't have been worse. Margot had known her mother would do something about Coligny. She might not have been in her mother's confidence the way Claude was, dull Claude, inexplicably their mother's favourite daughter, but she knew that Catherine would not let an open threat stand. And her mother wouldn't even have to do anything; the Guises were in a blood feud with Coligny ever since the murder of the older Duke, her former lover's father. Margot fully expected her mother to point the Guises Coligny's way and let them deal with the Admiral, thereby having culprits at hand which also happened to be near rivals in their power. What Margot hadn't expected, what nobody had expected, including her mother, was what actually happened: the assassination attempt at Coligny was bungled and did not succeed.

For the rest of her life, Margot would be haunted by what followed. The Louvre already had turned into a hornet's nest with the first news of the assassination attempt, and her worst fears came true; she was treated with distrust by Catholics and Protestants alike, nobody talking to her in anything but meaningless phrases. Would the wounded Coligny inspire a Protestant uprising? Would there be another, more successful attempt? Nobody as much as hinted anything in her presence. And she would have to go to the rooms she now shared with Henri de Navarre, who surely thought, just like the rest of them did, that she knew all about the plan to kill Coligny and would try to interrogate her about it. Margot tried to linger as long as she could in her mother's rooms. Since she usually did just the opposite, Catherine noticed.

"Go to bed, my child," her mother said, voice flat. Margot had no choice; she curtsied and turned around when a hand on her sleeve detained her. It belonged to her sister.

Claude looked awful; she'd been taken ill on her way to Paris and was barely recovered, but it was more than that; she actually had tears in her eyes.

"You mustn't go, sister," she said. "Stay here."

Margot had always preferred her brothers to her sisters, but she felt a patronizing fondness for Claude, or Poor Claude, as she usually thought of her, who was even willing to hear her out now and then when Margot railed against Claude's idol, their mother, which was more than could be said of the boys. Poor Claude, who probably in her hearts of hearts couldn't help but be jealous of Margot, for how could it be otherwise? Claude had a hunchback, a clubfoot, caught illnesses easily and was overlooked more often than not. Margot was beautiful, healthy, and the general centre of attention in any room, unless their mother was there. So she had never expected Claude to go up against a command of their mother's on Margot's behalf, and the fact that Claude did suddenly struck fear in Margot's heart, not comfort. What was going on?

"Let her go, Claude," their mother said.

Claude bit her lip. "It isn't right, your grace," she said, in a low voice, but unmistakably. "If they discover anything, they will avenge themselves on her."

Margot felt her mother's eyes on her, judging, balancing. She had never felt so worthless, and she hated her mother for it, even as she wished her mother would embrace her and declare Margot was to stay and to be told everything.

"God willing, she will come to no harm," Catherine said, speaking to Claude as if Margot wasn't standing right there. "In any case, she must now go, or else she will awaken their suspicions."

Margot felt Claude's lips on hers, briefly, when Claude had never kissed her before in her life. Claude was now openly crying.

"God be with you, Margot."

A few hours later, the Louvre turned into a slaughterhouse, along with all of Paris. Margot, who had never had any liking or interest for any Protestant, found herself saving three of them, one who dropped into her chambers by accident and two servants of her new husband's, as she heard the screams of the dying. She did not feel particularly compassionate or Christian while doing so; she simply could do no other, not with one of them bleeding on her as he stumbled into her room, and the others kneeling in front of her while there was death all around them. Margot had seen death before, but not like this. Never like this.

She was still dazed and shaking by the time she saw her sister again. Harmless, dull Claude, Poor Claude, had known and carried this kind of knowledge? It was as mad a thought as anything else happening on St. Bartholomew's Day.

And then it got worse.

"It was only meant to be the leaders," Claude said. "And now nobody is in control anymore, and everybody is killing everybody else. Oh my sister, I think it is the end of days!"

The idea that there hadn't even been a plan beyond the execution of the heads of the Protestant faction and that what was currently happening wasn't masterminded but a bloody force of nature was somehow even worse than if Claude had confirmed Catherine was in control. Margot could have dealt with horrors, had her mother been in control of them. That would have been the natural order of things. If her mother was helpless now, they were all doomed along with the corpses bleeding already.

"And she sent me right into the charnel house", Margot said out loud, clinging to her personal bitterness because that was something she could understand, in dimensions she could understand, as opposed to the enormity of all the killings going on. "So that nobody would suspect. Well, at least you tried to save me."

"I tried to save _her_ ," Claude said, shocking Margot right out of her dazed stupor.

"What?"

"To doom your own child is the worst of sins," Claude said. "If you had died, she'd have had your blood on her hands. You may think she doesn't love you, but you _are_ her daughter, and I tell you, it would have broken the core of her that makes her who she is. Queen and Mother both. That's why I tried to stop you from leaving."

Margot blinked and looked at Claude. Claude still looked terrible, but her voice did not tremble.

"I don't like you, Margot. But you _are_ my sister, and so I worry, yes. Our mother, though, our mother I love, and I would do anything for her."

The rejection burned and together with the horror of night and day behind them, it caused Margot to explode.

"She is a monster," Margot said. "Not worth anyone's love. She never was, she never will be, I don't know why I keep trying, and if she finally dies, I will dance on her grave!"

At first, Claude's expression was a mixture of pity - how dare Claude, Poor Claude of all the people have pity on her? - and dawning indignation, and then her sister's eyes shifted, and finally reflected the terror Margot had been feeling the entire day. Margot turned around, knowing the feeling hadn't been evoked by some surviving and vengeful Protestants, or by more bloodthirsty Catholics out of control.

Her mother stood at the entrance of the room, and her face showed she'd heard every word. It was ashen. But her voice, when she finally spoke, was cool and composed.

"You will," Catherine said. "For you _will_ survive, Margot. As Queen. For you are, after all, my daughter."


End file.
